Open Letter To Target Corp

June 9, 2014

To: Target Corporation
From: Mitch Berg, Law-abiding Customer
Re:  Billionaire Trouble

Dear Target,

I’ve been a customer of yours for decades, like most Minnesotans.  I estimate I likely spend well north of $2,000 a year at your stores, counting groceries and clothing.

And like about 180,000 Minnesotans, I have a permit to carry a firearm.

Minnesotans with carry permits are nearly three orders of magnitude less likely to commit a firearm crime than the general public; we are literally better safety risks, per capita, than your employees are.

Now, a group called “Moms Demand Action”, which is an astroturf pressure group owned and operated by billionaire ex-mayor Michael Bloomberg, is putting a lot of media pressure on Target to bar all firearm carry at your stores, nationwide, after the intemperate actions of a few “open carry” activists in Texas.

While your stores are indeed your property, please be advised that if you bar all firearms – including tactfully-concealed weapons that many of us carry for our and our fellow citizens’ protection, I will…:

  • Take my money elsewhere, and keep it there
  • Do my best, via this blog and my talk show, to make sure everyone I can  possibly influence does the same.

There are twenty times as many carry permittees in Minnesota alone as there are members of all “gun safety” groups.  And while we respect your property rights, given a choice, we will protect our rights first.

It is that important to us.

Yours,

Mitch Berg

———-

I urge you to send a polite email, or phone call, to Target.

In your own words, tell Target that

  • Michael Bloomberg’s money – not a bunch of plucky moms – is behind this astroturf effort.
  • The “Moms” group — actually Michael Bloomberg’s billions — is trying to rope Target into their extreme agenda
  • Permit holders are overwhelmingly more law abiding than the general population
  • I am a law-abiding gun owner/carry permit holder
  • I am a frequent Target shopper
  • I spend my money where my rights are respected

Contact Target as follows:

  • Email:  Guest.Relations@Target.com
  • Phone:  1-800-440-0680

Remember – calm and polite wins the day.  We win battles by being smarter than the Orcs.  This can be no exception.  We are held to a higher standard than they are – and we almost always hit that standard.

We can change Target’s mind, the same way we humiliated Michael Bloomberg in the past two legislatures; by being better, smarter, and much more dedicated than they are.

This post will remain stuck to the top of this blog until late Tuesday morning.

16 thoughts on “Open Letter To Target Corp

  1. This is a good test case to see how powerful Bloomberg and his money is.

  2. I got the e-mail message/alert from GOCRA this afternoon, I’ll be letting Target know my sentiments soon. Bloomberg be d*mned!!

  3. Fresch —

    Sign the petition

    This is horrifying: According to multiple news outlets, a Target employee found a loaded handgun in the toy aisle of a store in South Carolina.

    When you’re shopping at Target, you shouldn’t have to worry about someone parading around with a semiautomatic rifle, or whether your kid is going to find a loaded handgun while looking at toys.

    More than 115,000 people have already signed the petition to Target asking for gun sense policies to protect customers and employees from gun violence — and over the next two days volunteers are going to be delivering these petitions all across the country.

    Target’s paying attention. Can you sign the petition right now so we can include it when we deliver signatures to Target offices and stores?

    Click here to automatically sign the petition and we’ll hand deliver it to Target offices and stores in the next two days:

    TARGET, please issue gun sense policies to keep your customers and employees safe from the risk of gun violence by protecting against people openly carrying weapons in your stores.

    The problem is that in the majority of states, virtually anyone can openly carry loaded weapons without any permits, training or background checks. That means it’s up to companies like Target to do the right thing and issue gun sense policies for their stores.

    We’re making a huge impact. Moms and other supporters are taking over social media to ask Target to protect its customers, and our petition has been covered by media all over the world, including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and CNBC.

    Automatically sign the petition asking Target to create gun sense policies that ask their customers to leave their guns at home. We’ll deliver your petition signature along with more than 115,000 others tomorrow and Tuesday.

    http://act.everytown.org/sign/target-petition

    Thanks for standing with us,

    Shannon Watts
    Founder
    Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America

  4. The crowd that screams the loudest wins. Especially with an image conscious/bad publicity adverse corporation. So we must be heard also.
    Now, I don’t have a problem with Target banning open carry in their stores.
    People carrying rifles into big box retail stores really aren’t doing us a favor. They remind me a bit of the homosexuals suing bakers to force the baker to participate in their gay wedding.

  5. “Lack of gun” ≠ “safe”.
    The tact I would take is that you need to CC to ensure the safety of you and your family while shopping, esp. given the events in Las Vegas yesterday. Screw the 2nd amendment talk, just tell them that you will not feel safe shopping at Target w/o your legal CC weapon, and you will shop elsewhere.
    Alinsky the SOB’s. Use their own weapons against them.

  6. Does Bloomberg donate to the Dayton gubernatorial campaign? Think that could influence Target’s decision?

    If I were Target I’d split the difference and restrict unconcealed/ openly carried firearms.

    I also sent the e-mail; quick and easy.

  7. Here’s an update on the Loaded-Gun-At-Target story:
    http://www.wbtw.com/story/25700840/real-loaded-gun-found-among-the-toys-at-target-in-myrtle-beach

    South Carolina does not have Open Carry, a permit is required. I’ll bet you a brand new nickel that guy didn’t have one, meaning he was already breaking a state law. A person who’s willing to break the state law is unlikely to comply with Target’s private gun ban. Therefore, a Target gun ban will do NOTHING to stop this type of problem.

    Some kooks shot a pair of cops in Las Vegas, then ran to a Wal-Mart and shot someone else before killing themselves. Using the logic of the Target situation (criminal leaves gun in store, Moms demand ban), the logical result is to demand that Wal-Mart ban guns, too, so cop-killers can’t bring their guns into the store.
    .

  8. I’ll bet you a brand new nickel she purchased the gun for him because he’s a felon.

  9. It is the right of gun owners to object, but it is important for them to understand that the price of their gun privilege is that others will abuse that privilege and create problems elsewhere in society.

  10. So its just like every other constitutional right, Emery?
    Amazing insight!

  11. The ability of a minority to protect a highly valued freedom is actually one of the things I like best about the US (I chose to live here). There are negative side effects, and the failure to pass gun control is one of them.

  12. Emery squeaked: “and the failure to pass gun control is one of them.”

    like every other progressive I’ll bet you have a list of specifics that comprise “gun control” in your mind (for instance DG would prefer that only state approved citizens be allowed to posses a firearm) – Emery, do share your list with the rest of us.

  13. Emery, it is the “right” to keep and bear arms, not the “privilege”. Rights are granted by God, privileges are granted by government.

    And for what it’s worth, where the “rights of Englishmen” are abridged, like in England, gun crime and crime in general has been rising. For that matter, the same goes in Chicago, the District of Columbia, and we’ll see what happens in NYC when the experiment they’ve been running is dismantled by the new mayor. I’m guessing it won’t be pretty.

  14. I wish we could have different gun laws for every county, but given our freedom of movement and commerce, the lowest common denominator gun laws apply to the entire country.

    Yes, bikebubba, gun violence is not your fault. But widespread gun ownership makes criminals more dangerous, and is standing in the way of the only solution we know of to reduce gun violence, which is a serious problem for some of your fellow citizens. It’s not their fault either, but they can’t solve the problem without your acquiescence. Although I support gun control, it isn’t my highest political priority, and I don’t expect progress in the short to medium term.

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